Global Warming and Energy

Right now Sandy has sustained winds of 75 MPH, making it the weakest hurricane possible. From the news coverage, you would think it was the biggest hurricane ever. Now damage could be catastrophic. If so, all this would prove is the destructiveness of government subsidies that encourage people to live in dangerous places.

My contention that forecasters don't believe Sandy will be a hurricane when it makes landfall are verified.

"...WINDS FORECAST TO BE NEAR HURRICANE FORCE AT LANDFALL..."

Storm surge could reach up to 8 feet. Isolated areas could get 12 inches of rain. While this is nothing to take lightly, hurricanes that hit the south are generally produce more rain and higher storm surges. Mountains may get 3 feet of snow, which doesn't happen in the south. The hype for this storm is still way out of proportion with its statistics. And it looks like alarmism has spread from the media to the government, which is no surprise since the two are one and the same anymore, but it's still not good. I get that there's a lot more people in this area than along the Gulf, but that doesn't make the storm more dangerous. Accuweather description describes a run of the mill hurricane despite the hyperventilating warnings. They claim it will hit with the punch of a category 2 hurricane. If you looked back the last 100 years, you'd find dozens of category 2 storms or larger which hit the US. The problem is it's headed right at New York City and New York City and New England are foolishly unprepared for even a run of the mill hurricane.

The perfect storm includes links to deadly New England hurricanes. Katrina's maximum storm surge reached 27.8 feet.

It looks like there might be an outbreak of honesty among the global warming fraud gatekeepers. Apparently one of Climategate's central figures, Briffa, has new paper that points out bias in the CRU data and restores the Medieval Warm Period and erases Mann's fake hockey stick.

"What is most curious here is that it was Briffa (in the Climategate emails) who was arguing that some claims about his post 1960 MXD series data as used in other papers might not be valid. It set the stage for “Mikes Nature trick” and “hide the decline“."
"I have to wonder if this is some sort of attempt to “come clean” on the issue. Mann must be furious at the timing. There’s no hint of a hockey stick, and no need to splice on the instrumental surface temperature record or play “hide the decline” tricks with this data."

You do have to wonder if Briffa decided to come clean. If so, good for him.

"I suspect there will be a flurry of papers trying to counter this to save Mann’s Hockey Stick."

That's because this is the first big crack in the solidarity of the gate keepers: Jones, Mann, Hansen and Briffa are the four I'm aware of. The reason the timing is bad for Mann is Mann recently sued Mark Steyn and National Review. This would seem stupid on his part since he's fighting another suit to keep his taxpayer funded data and email private. The discovery process of this suit will make it impossible to keep those things private. Apparently Mann falsely claimed to be a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize which was actually awarded to the IPCC and Al Gore, not him.

"I’m sure Mark Steyn is thrilled with the prospect of now being able to do additional commentary on this side show.  I can’t wait for depositions and discovery."

I'm sure he is. Never attack the man with the microphone. Steyn and National Review are going to have a field day with this. If Mann follows through on this, it will probably end his career.